


Candles

by rei_c



Series: Fundamental Image 'verse [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-10
Updated: 2006-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 02:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rei_c/pseuds/rei_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He comes here at night, sometimes, alone when it is quiet and the pews are empty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candles

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after the events of [Hamartia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/985066/chapters/1941144).

He comes here at night, sometimes, alone when it is quiet and the pews are empty. Never earlier than midnight, never later than four, never for this. 

Jess is Catholic; he came with her to one of the advent masses his first year, when she was a friend who lived across the hall and he didn't have anywhere to go for the holiday. He sat next to her, kneeled next to her, stood to next to her in rhythm, something in the Mass speaking to something deep inside of him. Oh, he knew all the prayers, all the words, had said them so many times in so many places, but he never _knew_ them, not until he was safe in a sanctuary, surrounded by people who believed, who had faith, who had never seen what he had. He had walked out with Jess, and she'd asked him what he thought, and he'd murmured something about grace, and that was the first time she held his hand. 

She's not a devout Catholic, though her parents are. She comes for Christmas, and Easter, and some of the holy days, and advent, and he loves for it, for the easy acceptance she has of the mysteries he has seen working. She introduced him to the priest, and he loves her for that too, for the way she'd looked at him after he asked and then smiled, nodded, gave him a kiss and made a promise. 

When he started coming at night, in the morning, the church was empty, and then after a month of midnight vigils, the priest was there, waiting for him. They had talked, not about anything significant, but that night, the priest asked him to enter the confessional. He'd been thinking, the priest had said, that whatever the young man wished to release could be done under the sacred seal. He wouldn't be able to tell anyone, the priest had said, and then went to the little room off to the side of the sanctuary, closing a door behind him. 

He spoke for hours, that night, and the priest never stopped him, just listened as he confessed, and cried, and spoke of things he'd done, seen, been, had nightmares about. He felt exorcised when he left, and the priest had told him the confessional was always open. 

He likes it at night, when it's quiet and no one's there to watch him genuflect in the twilight darkness, to watch him say the decades of the rosary or the prayers to half-forgotten saints. He can contemplate the Sorrowful Mysteries in silence, then, sinking into their depths and leaving things like school, geography, history behind in favour of tasting the reaches of a deity's pain and desperation, but willful obedience most of all. 

He likes it at night, when no one is there to see him light candles, to whisper the names of people he doesn't know, the names of people he half-remembers, the names of people he misses down to his bones. Mom, he says, and lights one candle; I miss you. Dad, he says, and lights another; I'm sorry. Jess, he says, and lights four, one for every quarter of the day; I love you. Dean, he whispers, and lights a row of twenty-four, one for every hour in the day, one for every week he's been gone; I need you.


End file.
